Friday, March 15, 2013

The Secret

Shhhhhhhhhh

Isn't much of a secret really. I mean, I've understood
the idea of “The Secret” for some time...think I watched a show on Oprah about
it or something. In case you haven't heard of "The Secret", it's something along the lines of visualizing one's goals to the extent that you believe it will
happen. The power of faith. Believing in yourself. Whatever.

I'm not a very spiritual person, neither is my husband.
In fact, he makes fun of me whenever I talk about astrology or “nonsense” like
that cause it’s all superstition as far as he’s concerned. We were talking one afternoon about my
writing goals and some decisions that were pending...decisions that were out of
my control. I said something negative (which is typically the way I roll when
talking about myself) and he surprised me by saying that I needed to believe in
my goals if I wanted them to happen and that speaking negatively about it went
against the principles of “The Secret”. I think my mouth actually dropped open
and I thought about checking his forehead for fever. The Secret? Really? That's
bordering on spiritual in many ways. The power of faith? Restricted territory
in our world.

He went on to say that he'd been watching a
documentary about “The Secret” and although he couldn't finish watching it
cause it got too preachy and boring (this is when I knew he was still the same
level headed man I married) he did find it intriguing that the idea of
believing in your goals could have such power. When I tried to argue about
track record he said, "you can't base what's going to happen in the future on
what has happened in the past, not when you're talking about things that are
out of your control". Hmmmmmmmm....now, that made sense to me, it really gave me
something to think about. Nothing that has happened in my past could impact the
decision that was coming, at least not luck or superstition or anything like
that..

So, that night, while reading in bed, I started
thinking about what he said. I closed the paperback I was holding and looked at
the cover. Of course it was the genre I write and it just so happened that the
author’s last name name starts with a capital A...so you know what I did? I covered
all the other letters in that author's name except for the A, and then I envisioned
myself holding my own book, tracing that embossed A over and over again. It
felt good. It felt powerful. So that’s my secret. ;-)

9 comments:

I have faith in you Angie because you can write and you are constantly striving to improve your craft. This means you are already off to a running start.

There is no doubt that positive thinking (for me, 'faith' has a spiritual element) and focusing on your goals, believing in yourself can work. When you aren't low you give your best, and you're more productive. Others see your positivity and believe in you too, which tends to make decisions they make regarding you have more positive outcomes. Focusing on the positive removes any self-imposed barriers and gives the best chance of success. Do I believe positive thinking is spiritual, no because that implies some from outside ourselves, something greater. But positive thinking does have the power to influence what you can achieve and how you come across in so many subtle ways - it can really make a difference.

You've had a long road, but it will happen. The thing I hear over and over at book signings is that you have to keep writing, keep learning, keep moving. You are going in the right direction and it will happen. Whether you have a faith or not, there is power in believing in something, even in yourself.